The Ghost's Crusade

X: Akkali (cont.)

Pushing herself free of Tiernan's jumbled arms and legs Akkali could see the misshapen figures of what had been men but were now nothing more than flesh puppets and failed experiments. Some lumbered along hunchbacked on all fours, others drug themselves along on a hand and foot, missing their opposing limbs. They all reeked of the stale rot that espiri magic left upon everything it touched.

“Homunculi,” muttered Tiernan, spitting on the ground in disgust.

Tugging her batai free of their sheathes the Enkiri righted herself and knocked aside the creature that had flattened her, then drove it into the ground with an elbow planted directly to what should have been the small of its back. Reaching around quickly she dragged Tiernan halfway to his feet then felt the mine exhale a stale breath tainted with rotting flesh yet again. Half a dozen more of the poorly assembled things shambled up the tunnel with whatever they had attached to them capable of producing a forward gate, frantically scrambling for the exit like a herd of stampeding cattle.

Drystan came forward to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with her, shortsword drawn. “We need to keep them here.”

“What do you intend to do, ask them to stay put like dogs?” she retorted sharply, lifting up a nearby stone with her foot and slinging it down the shaft at one of the approaching creatures. It impacted solidly with the eye cavity and stuck there, and had she not been absolutely certain they were about to be trampled to death, she would have had to laugh at the sight.

“Do what you did in Gendelheim with the barrel. Trap them here.”

Her spine stiffened. “Absolutely not!”

“Close Tier and I in and we'll put them all down.” Drystan frowned at her and said in a much quieter tone, “They are in the open warrens. We are not far enough away for them to be safe—we need to stop these creatures here.”

Akkali knew the two of them were right. Every tunnel in the Shalewarrens lead to somewhere else; unless one came across a completely collapsed passageway it was possible to traverse the whole of the Oribian without ever treading upon the surface. There was no guarantee that the homunculi would stay put in the mines at Baedorn, and her camp was only a day's trek to the south and east of the city itself. Her people were in danger if the things in front of them were left to shamble wherever they pleased. They were for the most part well-trained and could fight them off, but it would undoubtedly cost more of their lives than she was willing to accept.

Grinding her teeth together as she backed up the tunnel she said to the Inferi, “If I get a sword through my gut I'm haunting you two in whatever afterlife you end up in. Don't think I won't hunt you down, either.”

Blue eyes glittering in the lamplight Drystan laughed with a brazen amount of mirth and tugged on Tiernan's sleeve, turning back towards the approaching constructs as though he was facing down nothing more than a line of tin soldiers out of a toy box. “Let's put them down and go find who did this, shall we?”

Evidently deciding to set aside the fact that he had been ignored up until then the Inquisitor nodded and drew a well-tended hunting knife from a sheath tucked inside his right boot, slinging his longbow across his back. “Agreed.”

Closing her eyes Akkali focused on the chiseled-out tunnel ground and listened. The mine exhaled again, sending the stench of death and lavender blooms wheezing out along with the shambling creatures the darkness seemed to be vomiting out. She hated the filthy feeling of the air. It was like wading in swamp slime, a disgusting film that clung to the skin and repelled anything good that might come to clean it away.

The markings running down her neck and arms began to seethe as they rooted themselves in the tunnel walls all around her. Like water-starved plants they drew in the energy of the earth and let it pool within her skin, swirling with the kind of life that had been stripped of the creatures ahead. The longer she left the gates open the faster the magic flowed in. With a few quick thoughts she molded the shape she needed and let the dam break.